Smallification

Monday, January 10, 2011

I guess it’s striking to get a reminder that work I consider to be localized finds its way to the masses with the help of WordPress and Google. Today, my post about taking a screenshot on Android ranks fifth on Google for the keywords “android screenshot” and of course, by linking to it, I’ve raised the PostRank of this post.

The stark reminder here is that content matters more than brand. Note the fact that visits to our base page are less than half the visits to the Android screenshot post. The people who found that post don’t know who we are or what we do. All they know is the post either helped them answer a question or it didn’t. Then, they were gone like Kaiser Söze.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Seth's Blog: The Domino Project: "Digital goods and manifestos in book form make it easier to spread complex ideas. It’s long frustrated me that a blog post can reach 100 times as many people as a book, but can’t deliver the nuance a book can. The Domino Project is organized around a fundamentally different model of virality, one that allows authors to directly reach people who can use the ideas we’re writing about."

OK, so he's not really killing the book. He's reinventing it. And that's way cool.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

My point in posting this quote isn't about Gov. Christie, but about the importance of social networking and waning importance of broadcasting.

Chris Christie, N.J. Governor, Is a YouTube Standout - NYTimes.com: "A Sean Hannity or Don Imus interview has a bigger audience, but experts say the influence of online video may be greater. People learn of the videos from trusted friends or bloggers, they can replay them endlessly, and they often forward the links to others; and they are likely to pay closer attention to something they seek out rather than something that washes over the airwaves.

Yes, Chirstie's handlers are adept at disguising professionally shot and edited videos as amateur stuff, and yes, that's a concern with regard to issues of trust and transparency in social media. But the bottom line is that the importance and effectiveness of the big media broadcasting model is in decline, will eventually reach a point of equilibrium with social media.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Reading E-Books Rewrite Bookselling in today’s Wall Street Journal got me thinking about how much the manner in which I consume media has changed of late.

Several months ago I cancelled all of my cable movie channels and re-activated my NetFlix account; I stream the movies more often watching via DVD. Similarly, I also recently started using Rhapsody (love it!), a fantastic alternative to downloading and storing music -- and worrying about secure back-ups to protect my investment. I also cancelled my Sirius-XM account because my iPhone is a far more useful and flexible alternative (especially with the Rhapsody app.)

So a great deal of the media I consume lives in the Cloud, where I can access it via a variety of devices. Is there a similar model on the horizon for the publishing industry?

While I often read newspaper and magazine articles on my iPhone, the idea of reading a book on that device never appealed to me. But the iPad offers an excellent book-reading experience, so much so that I doubt that I'll purchase another paper book (with the exception of library sales and the occasional irresistible remainder bargain.)

But rather than having to download and store digital copies of books, I'd love to see a model similar to Rhapsody or NetFlix, where I pay for 24/7, any-device access to the e-books I want to read.

Audible, the digital audiobook company, has a sort of hybrid model. The audiobooks I've purchased are permanently stored on the site, where they can be streamed to my computer. The downside is that if I want to listen on my iPhone I have to download the file and then upload to my device. But unlike content I purchase from iTunes, if any of my Audible purchases are accidentally deleted, I can download another copy from the site. (An Audible iPhone app that allows me to stream titles in my library seems like a no-brainer, no?)

(At least as far as music is concerned, Apple's purchase of Lala may signal a move to a cloud-based model that will go head-to-head with Rhapsody. Time will tell.)

Audible also offers monthly membership deals that allow users to download a predetermined number of titles each month.

So as the new breed of ebook stores comes online, I hope someone offers a model similar to NetFlix, Rhapsody, and Audible.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The growth of sites like Twitter and Facebook has given rise to the idea that events have both a frontchannel (the Super Bowl, for example) and a backchannel (the live, online discussion from fans watching the game.) The next generation of Web-connected TVs and software will include ways for people to monitor and interact with the conversation happening around an event, filtering live streams in real-time to display the most relevant discussions.

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Bob Rhubart

About Me

About Smallification

The confluence of technology, society, and culture continues to change the world in profound and unexpected ways. Smallification seems an apt and concise description of that change. It's about decentralization and democratization. It's about seeing the world as as complex adaptive system in which technology increasingly empowers the individual to form innovative connections that reshape culture, society, and the marketplace.